Hang With Friends

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Come on in, pull up a chair!

Picture yourself spending some time with congenial friends, sharing your lives and pictures from your cell phones." They're curious about that cool game, song, movie, camping trip, art show, or other event that fascinated you. You talk about all kinds of stuff, poetry, styles, personal achievements, relationships, and bad days. You can share your inner child, and laugh together. They sympathetically listen to your feelings about serious topics like politics or climate change, even when they don't agree.

Personal validation comes from paying attention to one another, giving more than you get. Everyone respects you and themselves, despite our amazing range of personal tastes and interests. They'll tell you they don't agree with an idea or behavior without implying you're a bad person or somehow deficient. It's an "I'm OK, You're OK" kind of fellowship, where nobody tries to make himself look better by picking on somebody else.

Nobody here is into mind games. A discussion started with a loaded guilt-throwing question will be deleted.

This group is not intended to compete with other groups on topics they cover but to "fill in the cracks." Whenever a discussion dwells at length on a topic for which there's an existing group, we urge you to provide members a link to that group to continue along their tangent.

A comment is a shout-out, which will get lost in a few days, because the comment wall is just a random stack.

Please start a discussion to share stories, photos, and videos. Replies will pop up in your "latest activity" and a conversation can develop from the feelings and thoughts you contributed. Groups are built on discussions.

Ages ago (five or six years, I guess it is) when I first started recognizing my own atheism, one of the first atheist YouTubers I ran onto was Non Stamp Collector. His handiwork wasn't up to Disney's standards, nor even Hanna-Barbera, but his wit…Continue

Here is an oldie, the young Richard Dawkins teaching kids about the universe. I especially like the one demonstrating how the eye evolved. This should answer those who believe it was impossible to evolve an eye. Continue

TheraminTrees doesn't release videos very often these days, but when he does, they are positive GEMS. Most recent of his works is the following, wherein he dismantles some of the common rebuttals atheist get from believers when we assert our…Continue

My take on the recent melt down at Hang With Friends, of which I missed part, is that some of us were tripped up by a habit of thought. It's something we learn growing up, and use without realizing how much pain it can generate - failing to…Continue

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Carl, a delightful history of the old facility over time and times. It is so strange to see how little USA values historical properties. As you know, it is not uncommon to go into a 200-600 year old building still in use in many places in Europe. Prince Phillip of Great Britain stated, "Countries that destroy their past deserve no future."

The Rainbo, at 4812 N. Clark, was purchased in 2002 and torn down to make way for a new condo and townhouse development. At one point, however, it was a very popular outdoor music garden, fashioned after the Moulin Rouge Gardens in Paris, which is the original namesake for what was then called "Moulin Rouge Gardens."[16]

Investors bought the Moulin Rouge Gardens property and spent one-million dollars to expand the facility. Opened in 1921, Mann's Million Dollar Rainbo Room, named after Fred Mann's wartime service in the U.S. Army's 42nd Infantry or "Rainbow" Division, was said to be the largest nightclub in America, featuring some of the biggest names in Vaudeville and musical entertainment. Larry Fine (actor) was performing there the night he was asked to join The Three Stooges. The Rainbo Room had a revolving stage to allow for continuous entertainment. There was table seating for 2,000 patrons and space on the dance floor for an additional 1,500. Until 1927, WMAQ radio shared the 670 kilohertz frequency with station WQJ, which was owned by the Rainbo and Calumet Baking Powder Company; it broadcast music of the Rainbo's performers as a form of promotion.[17][18]

In 1927, during prohibition, it was converted to a major casino and sports venue, called the Rainbo Fronton.

In 1934, during the Chicago World's Fair (Century of Progress), it became French Casino. The French Casino is where John Dillinger spent his birthday, June 22, 1934, a month before he was shot.

In 1939, it became Mike Todd's Theater Cafe, which was a popular dinner theater. Tommy Sutton, the Theater Cafe's choreographer, went on to work with Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington and Nat King Cole, among others. It was also a venue for Championship Wrestling where, in 1955, the first women's tag team wrestling match was held.

In 1957, The Theater Cafe was converted to an ice skating rink, called Rainbo Arena, which was a practice rink for the Chicago Blackhawks including the year they won the 1961 Stanley Cup. The Rainbo Arena was also a training rink for several Olympic figure skaters, housed a pro bowling alley and the original Kinetic Playground music venue.

In the 1960s and thereafter, The Rainbo was a popular late night roller rink until it was torn down for a new housing development called Rainbo Village. When the building was being demolished in 2003, an assortment of human bones and tennis shoes were discovered in what had been the building's basement.[19] How the bones and shoes ended up there has remained unresolved.

I added my name, Sk8eycat. I hope the building and the business get saved. Good luck! I hate seeing wonderful icons of the past so readily discarded.

In recent years here in Chicago we lost an iconic roller-skating rink......torn down for condo buildings. The property (The Rainbo) was part of a entertainment venue that dated to before World War I. It survived Prohibition as a speakeasy and hosted many of the famous big bands throughout 30's and 40's. It had a fantastic history.

I wanted to explain some of the history of Culver, but it would have taken too much time and space...one small example is that Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner trained there before and after they became US and World Pairs Champions, and several of my friends from Holiday (and before) taught there. It's one of the "homier" ice rinks in SoCal.

There's a big rink here in Burbank, but they are so snotty about who is allowed to teach there that most people don't bother with the place. They want ALL their teachers/coaches to have national titles at the very least, whether they have the ability to teach and encourage kids or not. Plus they are nervous, even after all these years, about skin color. Can You imagine that?! Culver has NEVER cared about color...except the color of money. Which they are still raking in. It's the landlords, who don't even live in California, who want to try condos or a (money-losing) mall.

After all these years, and all the champions and ice show stars who have come out of that rink, the place should be declared some sort of cultural/sports landmark.

You know I rarely send petitions to friends, but this one is important to ME. The people that own the land that Culver Ice Arena is on want to get rid of it, and build condos, or something equally stupid. After 52 years, there is so much permafrost under the rink that if/when they cut off the refrigeration, they'll end up with a useless swamp.

Please read the petition, and if you are so inclined, sign it Monday before 6PM Pacific Time..

I don't know if the kitten in that video was having a nightmare, or if dogs are dreaming when their paws twitch while they are asleep.

In humans, we are paralyzed during REM sleep. At least some of us are; I have had what are called "waking dreams" when I'm half awake, try to move or yell, and can't do anything for a minute or two till I'm fully awake.

(Had one episode where I heard something outside my bedroom window...probably an animal...my dreaming mind thought "prowlers!," and I tried to yell, just made incoherent noises...couldn't move, scared my sister half to death. She called 911, but by the time the police and EMTs got here I was fully awake, and terribly embarrassed.)